Chapter 2: The Truth About One’s Origins

Lan Mo was dead!

She had been struck on the head by a loose rock that fell from a mountain. Her eyes were wide open when she died, unable to rest in peace…

A top student, Lan Mo, twenty-eight years old, unmarried, was an obstetrician at Jingdu First People’s Hospital. In her four years on the job, she had delivered over four thousand babies with not a single fatality, earning her the moniker “Obstetrics Saint.”

When an earthquake struck the Chuannan Region, Lan Mo went with the main relief team. Half an hour after arriving, she saved a high-risk elderly expectant mother. Less than ten minutes later, she was struck on the head by a loose rock dislodged by an aftershock and breathed her last…

In a stinking ditch in the 1960s, a young girl lay perfectly still, her eyes wide open…

Suddenly, her eyelashes trembled slightly. She quickly shut her eyes, her hands flailing in the ditch water.

“Cough, cough, cough…”

Lan Mo’s head was buzzing. Hadn’t she been hit by a rock? Why was she now lying in a ditch?

Wait, what was this Erba Gang bicycle by her feet? Lan Mo lifted a hand to look. These clothes weren’t right either… Could it be? Had she transmigrated?

Zzz… Memories in her mind began to play like a fast-moving slideshow, impossible to stop.

Holy crap, she really had transmigrated!

Why the hell did the heavens send her to this godforsaken era?

Lan Mo of the 21st century had studied for nearly twenty years and worked tirelessly day and night for four years at the First People’s Hospital.

She had just finished paying off her mortgage and bought a new car, and was planning to bring her parents over to enjoy a comfortable life, maybe even find a partner through matchmaking. But as a result of shielding someone from a small rock, she had arrived in the 1960s.

Lan Mo slowly climbed up, spitting out mouthfuls of filthy water as she went, gradually recalling how the original owner of this body had died.

It was now 1965, the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month. The fifteenth of the seventh month was the Zhongyuan Festival, commonly known as the Ghost Festival.

The original owner, Lan Mo, was twenty years old this year, an intern at Haishi First People’s Hospital.

Her grandfather, Lan Guochang, was seventy, a retired military doctor. Her grandmother, Lin Xiuying, was sixty-six, a well-bred lady from a noble Suzhou family. Her father, Lan Jingtian, was forty-eight, the deputy chief of the Haishi police station. Her mother, Su Mei, was forty-six, a salesclerk at Yong’an Department Store.

Her eldest brother, Lan Yuanzhi, was twenty-six, the head of a research team at the First Automobile Manufacturing Plant. Her sister-in-law, Ye Zhen, was twenty-three, a female worker at a textile factory. Her second brother, Lan Jingmo, was twenty-four, a soldier in the Land Combat Force. Lan Jiangli was two and a half years old.

In this era, for a family of six to all have respectable jobs was an extraordinary thing.

As the youngest child in the family, Lan Mo was supposed to be the treasured favorite.

Her twentieth birthday was just a few days away. On this day, Lan Mo was happily riding her bicycle home after work.

Just as she pushed her bicycle into the courtyard, she heard the voices of old Mrs. Lin and Su Mei coming from the backyard.

“Su Mei, our Momo’s twentieth birthday is almost here. Should we tell her about that matter in the next couple of days? We promised old Xu back then that we would tell her the truth about her birth on her twentieth birthday.”

The truth about her birth?

What truth about her birth?

Could it be that her mother really had picked her up from a trash heap?

Unlike her two brothers, her father, her second aunt, and her youngest nephew, all of whom had names containing characters related to medicine, she did not. Her original name was Lan Mo.

The character mò meant end, tip, final, last…

Could it be that her biological mother, after having five or six daughters in a desperate attempt to have a son, had no choice but to abandon her? And thinking she would be the last daughter, she had specially embroidered the character mò on her clothes?

Lan Mo’s thoughts began to drift…

She clenched her fists, took a deep breath, and stood motionless, continuing to listen…

Su Mei excitedly gripped old Mrs. Lin’s hands, her voice trembling slightly. “Mom, can we not tell Momo for now? I’m afraid she won’t be able to accept it. For the rest of my life, Momo is my daughter, and no one can take her away!”

“Don’t get excited, Su Mei. No one is trying to take Momo from you! Momo will always be a child of our Lan family. Ziwan has a son and a daughter now, both eighteen years old. She won’t come to fight you for the child.”

“Mom, Lan Ziwan may have a son and a daughter, but my poor Momo was abandoned by her less than a hundred days after she was born.

“It’s one thing to abandon her child and turn around to get married, but in all these years, with you and Dad still around, she hasn’t even come back to Haishi to see the child more than a few times.

“Sob, sob, sob… If Jingtian hadn’t insisted on keeping the child back then, Momo would have gone with her biological father, Xu Changqing, to suffer in Gangcheng.”

Two elderly people, one man, and two children under a hundred days old, crossing the sea by boat to Gangcheng. Without a “Mobile Milk Source” at hand, it was uncertain if they would even make it to Gangcheng alive.

Seeing her daughter-in-law crying, old Mrs. Lin sighed, her eyes red. “Ai, it’s all our fault as elders. If we had been able to rein Ziwan in back then, the two of them wouldn’t have ended up divorcing over such a small matter. And in the end, Ziwan even threw both children at Changqing…”

“Mom, you can’t be blamed for this. If anyone’s to blame, it’s Ziwan. She was too willful.”

That wicked woman, Lan Ziwan, had thrown both her children to her husband and run off with someone else.

The next year, she married the son of a high-ranking official in Jingshi, and the year after that, she gave birth to a pair of fraternal twins. That headstrong younger sister-in-law of hers was truly something else!

The spoiled and willful young lady, Lan Ziwan, had given birth to fraternal twins, which should have been a joyous occasion.

But just because she had been in labor for two or three days and Changqing wasn’t by her side, she got angry and insisted on a divorce.

At the time, Xu Changqing had left his wife for a business trip only because of his work. He had tried his best to return before her due date, but he was still too late, as Lan Ziwan had given birth a week early.

No matter how Xu Changqing tried to coax her, Lan Ziwan insisted on a divorce. Left with no choice, Xu Changqing had to agree.

Lan Ziwan spent seventy days in postpartum confinement to recover. As soon as she was well, she threw the children at Xu Changqing and ran off with another man.

Their marriage had been a hasty one; they had only held a wedding banquet and hadn’t even registered their marriage. As it turned out, since she ran off, there was no need to file for a divorce certificate either. From then on, the couple went their separate ways.

Disheartened, Xu Changqing followed his father’s arrangements, sold off the Xu family’s ancestral property, and prepared to take his two children south with his parents to cross the sea and develop their lives in Gangcheng on the other side.

That year, Su Mei’s own infant daughter, Lan Dingxiang, who had just turned one month old, died from a high fever caused by a cold because she didn’t receive timely medical treatment.

Su Mei was immersed in the grief of losing her beloved daughter. When Xu Changqing came to say goodbye with his two children, Lan Jingtian, wanting his wife to pull herself together, begged Xu Changqing to leave his young daughter behind.

Lan Guochang and his son Lan Jingtian spent a long time persuading him, promising to raise his daughter as their own.

After much consideration, Xu Changqing thought about his aging parents and the fact that the children had no mother to help with feeding. It would indeed be very inconvenient for him to take two children and two elderly people to Gangcheng alone.

In the end, he steeled his heart and left his young daughter with the Lan family. From then on, the Lan family had a new pearl in their palm.

Her mom was now her aunt, and that detestable aunt who always dressed like a peacock was actually her biological mother?

Heavens, just send a bolt of lightning to strike her dead!

After hearing the truth of her life’s mystery, the original Lan Mo couldn’t accept it and was deeply shocked. She numbly got on her bicycle and rushed out.

Due to her abrupt movements, she accidentally hit the bicycle bell. Su Mei glanced at her watch and instantly realized.

“Mom, was that Momo who just came back?”

“Oh no, it must have been her. Hurry, go after her and see…”

By the time Su Mei rushed out, Lan Mo had already disappeared on her bicycle.

As if sensing the original owner’s mood, the clear sky suddenly filled with dark clouds, and a torrential downpour began.

Lan Mo pedaled her bicycle forward with all her might. Large raindrops hammered down on her head, slowly trickling down, mixing with the tears at the corners of her eyes and blurring her vision.

Rumble…!

Lan Mo’s body trembled, and in a moment of carelessness…

She and her bicycle tumbled into a small ditch by the side of the road…

Thud!

“Cough, cough, cough…!”

Before Lan Mo could even call for help, glug… glug…

Lan Mo stared at the sky with wide-open eyes, unable to rest in peace…

The filthy water in the ditch wasn’t even half a meter deep; she shouldn’t have died.

She was just too unlucky. The sudden fall stunned her, and before she could react, the ditch water mixed with the rain had choked her to death in just a few gulps.

Alas! To be choked to death by dirty water, what an unjust way to die!

Even at the moment of her death, Lan Mo couldn’t figure out why she had run out today. Was it to seek her own death?

Lan Mo (the doctor): You came to give me a new life. I will live on well in your place.

Lan Mo (the original): You brat, I’m your ancestor! Lan Mo, your death while saving lives was a worthy one. I will also live on well in that world in your place.

Mò (末) means the end. Mò (沫) implies a delicate mind, a radiant presence, and soaring ambitions…

Lan Mo’s future would naturally be one of clear skies and bright spring days…